"Jim Carlock" wrote in message m...
Hello,

I will start by saying that I've had success with Corn, Basil,
and Cucumbers. I've got radishes growing but they never
looked like radishes... They've been growing for over 4
months now and they are pretty plants with bright red
stems, nice looking leaves. Can a radish be eaten months
after it's 30 day due date?

I've got some carrots growing but the carrots look like
they are still two months from maturing. The leaves are
growing upwards, are about 6 inches. The roots aren't
developing very much at the moment.

I've planted some cabbage but the cabbage doesn't seem
to be taking to well.

The sandy soil is slowly turning into a better (not so sandy)
soil, I'm thinking it'll take another year though before it's fully
where it should be.

So my main question involves what to grow in sand in order
to improve the quality of the sand? I've reworked the corn
stalks into the sand and that seems to have helped a bit,
and I keep adding dead leaves and such and keep watching
bugs appear.


Things that help with sand.

1) drip irrigation, since sand gets dry so damn fast.
2) much more organic matter than you think. Conside one foot deep
topdressing
3) sunken beds. This and 2) mean that you may have to dig up and
dispose of some of the sand, and replace it with compost
4) most veggies do well in sand but, as others said, cabbage, fava,
horseradish will not.
5) more frequent fertilizing

Some of my sandy beds are not so sandy anymore, but they did take over
one foot topdressing, and the manure I use has chunks of clay mixed
in, which helps. Veggies with a large taproot that is not eaten will
help deposit organic matter at depth (example, dandelion) but this
method will get you somewhere very slowly. You will just have to dig
the sand, spread it one the lawn, and come in with tons of compost, or
restrict yourself to what grows well there. I am sure watermelons will
do wonderfully.